Wednesday, October 3, 2012

sugar hill (1974)

Fashion photographer Ms. Diana 'Sugar' Hill (the beautiful Marki Bey) may look sweet but the only thing sweet about her is her revenge. When her beau is killed (the best way to go might be in a glittery leisure suit), she visits voodoo priestess Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully of "The Jeffersons" fame) for help. Maitresse and Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) unearth a group of zombies to knock off her beau's group of killers one by one.

Besides some of the funny lines, there are many highlights in the details in this one: wonderful, colorful costumes & big collars, severed chicken foot, ravenous hogs, silver ping pong ball eyes on the zombies, and a lot of cool jungle sounds (this was filmed in Houston). It's another brazen, more-than-meets-the-eye cheaply made '70s drive-in flick from American International Pictures and Samuel Z. Arkoff that still dazzles (and influences). ***

I love this quote from Stacie Ponder of Final Girl: "Sugar Hill proves at least one thing: if Jodie Foster had employed the use of zombies to exact revenge on her man's killers inThe Brave One as Diana "Sugar" Hill does, then The Brave One would have been about 77% better. Why use a gun when you can voodoo up some undead, amirite?"